


On the Shadow

by lodessa



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Action/Adventure, F/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-12-22
Updated: 2007-12-22
Packaged: 2017-10-05 04:16:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,165
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/37725
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lodessa/pseuds/lodessa





	On the Shadow

Asshai is the end of the world. The Valaryians tamed them, but this is where the dragons come from. The light in the Shadow Lands is wrong somehow. The sun never breaks through the haze that lingers over them, and yet there is an unusual harshness to its gleam. Brienne can understand why some think it is the product of some god's bad dream. Everything about it is unforgiving and twisted, just enough to seem wrong but not far enough for a separate identity. In the past two years she has traveled to many places more different from Westeros, but none so strange.

The very air is tainted with soot and steam, and it takes more energy to continue on than it would elsewhere. Her hands are raw from cutting the reeds that envelop them. Oathkeeper stays at her hip, as she uses a dragonglass knife, more like a scythe than anything else. Finally an open patch, even this rugged strain can't grow on the translucent black. They both breathe a sigh of relief. Jaime takes out his own dragonglass and begins to clear an area for the horses, they will not step foot of the slick surface of the glass. Brienne settles herself as comfortably as is possible for sleep on the hard rock. Jaime will take this watch; she does not need to ask.

This is a place of dreams, though not in a way that brings joy. Brienne dreams of returning to Tarth, but it's been set to burn, all the verdant beauty gone. On high, her home is gutted and even the sea, lapping at the edges of the island, seems dry and barren. She watches in horror as it retreats, ground cracked and dry as it is left behind. Brienne follows, walking on and on, but she cannot catch up to the water. She collapses in exhaustion and wakes up with the taste of ashes in her mouth.

Jaime hands her the trail rations that are their daily fare here. It's too dangerous to light a fire amidst all this, even on the dragonglass. They eat in silence. Not of the first time, Brienne wishes that they could have gone by sea, but discretion and their tendency to stand out forbade it. It is Jaime's turn to sleep. Night has fallen but the landscape seems to glow a bloody red. There is no true darkness here, just as there is no true light. She wonders if they will ever make it through. Even the wildlife of this place seems wrong, great cats with horns and birds with scales. It is possible they will die out here, and maybe Arya isn't even in Asshai. Maybe she is though, and that's all either of them has anymore. Brienne prays not to the Warrior but to the Mother for guidance now.

Two years ago, when Jaime showed up at Evenfall, Brienne had been taken by surprise. She had been even more shocked when he proposed they share this mad quest, the search for the missing Stark daughter. What else was left for Kingslayers, though? She had not killed Renly but she might as well have; and when she raised her sword to the animated and insane corpse of Catelyn Stark she had known that all the earnest vows in the world might well come to naught. There was no good reason to go looking for the Stark girls after that, nowhere to take them safer than wherever they might already be. Still, Jaime had made her remember her vow, the one it was not too late to keep. So she'd gone with him. She was not made for waiting and fretting at home while the world changed outside the gates of the keep. She is not good at women's work.

The sky of the Shadow Lands is starless. Brienne stares up at the blank and angry expanse, hugging her knees to her chest. Jaime sleeps fitfully, doubtless tormented by his own set of ominous dreams.

 

Cersei's bracelets are serpents. They slither off of her wrists and coil up around Jaime's arms, fangs hovering at his neck. He is paralyzed and she stands before him, crimson robe and fruit in hand. The ruby jewels of it stain her hands like bloodshed and she tells him to open his mouth. He knows that if he does not the vipers will strike. The fruit is strange against his lips and he swallows through instinct and not desire. Everything goes red.

It takes a few moments to realize that he is not blind but waking up. Brienne holds out the rough food that is all they have (they dare not eat of the strange beasts of the place) and he takes it thankfully. He will be glad to be rid of this place. There is something damned about it. It is time to move on.

It is his turn to cut clear a path for them. At first Brienne had offered to do all of it, but it is not a job that requires precision and his left hand needs practice. Besides, it gives him something to focus on, other than that he can never go home. The Dragon Princess was always going to want him dead, but since he's killed Cersei even his own family wishes him dead, his own children. Tommen hates him now and so even in death his sweet sister is having her revenge.

That Brienne is still here astonishes him. He'd preyed on her insecurity and restlessness back on Tarth, but after the sellswords made the first of many attempts on his life when they were in Braavos, after he'd had to confess that there was a price on his head issued in Lannister gold, he had expected her to leave him to his own fate. She had not. Instead she'd continued on with him, through the Free Cities, the less than free, and onwards so far east that even the most skeptical people they met shuddered at its very mention. The Shadow. They'd been warned against traveling there but rumor had it that Arya was in Asshai and they could not turn back after all this time.

So lost in his thoughts, Jaime almost doesn't realize the change until he goes to clear the next step and there is nothing to slice. They've reached an opening, not like those that they have slept in many nights in a now, but a genuine place of habitation. All around its edge is a ring of dragonglass, a flat wall around a city. And inside there are buildings and earth, real ground that is not covered in the sharp reeds which the Dothraki call Ghost Grass.

"Where are we?" Brienne's voice comes out horse, and Jaime realizes how little they have talked over the days since they entered the grasses.

"Some sort of civilization. It is clearly not Asshai and I have heard fearful things of the Shadow Men but we won't last much longer out there."

"I fear you are right. Let us sheathe our blades and hope that the rumors are just that."

So they step into the circle around the town, doubtless a strange sight, but they are used to that by now. Her height, armor, and general lack of feminine graces and his beauty and missing hand were both things of note and discordant with each other. They are an unlikely pair. There were always stares. Masked faces poke out of doorways and windows as they cross the expanse between civilization and wilderness. A group of soldiers meet them before they reached the first house. Jaime tries to speak to them in the Common tongue and the bastardized Valaryian that he's picked up in their travel but neither is any good. The guards speak to each other in some tongue that resembles nothing Jaime has ever heard before and indicate for Jaime and Brienne to follow into the city. Jaime hopes they are going to an interpreter.

What they find instead is some sort of telepath. Jaime can see him, hear him, inside of his mind. Brienne's hand goes to the hilt of her sword and Jaime has to grab it to keep her from drawing right then and there. Not that he likes this idea, not at all.

"Steady. Even if they mean ill we could not take near this many". He keeps hold of her hand with his own.

"I do not like it."

"Neither do I. But it is our best hope for communication."

He does understand. There are things in his mind he does not wish anyone to see, some because they are private, some because they are humiliating. He wonders which category Brienne's fall into. Painfully aware of his nakedness before this stranger in a mask, Jaime tries to focus his thoughts. He tries to show the man their wandering and their peaceful intentions. It must work because the guards are signaled to retreat and they are brought food and shown to seats. Jaime has no idea what it is, but it's warm and moist and anything other than the dried stuff they've been living off seems a wonder. Brienne seems to feel similarly because she is shoveling it into her mouth at an impressive rate. It is only after he is done that it occurs to Jaime that the meal might be poisoned.

The mystic seems surprised at their voyage. The land is cursed, he says. The minions of the Fire Lord commit such blasphemies that the mountains open up and envelop whole cities and the sky has turned red, obscured in vapors and ash. Out of these atrocities came the dragons, creatures that scourged the earth and devoured its people. His story is in pictures, broadcast directly to Jaime's mind. He sees the slaughter of children, recalls the rumors back in Westernos, shudders despite the warmth of his surroundings. Brienne's face has gone ashen. Jaime thinks about reaching over and lacing his fingers with hers for support, whatever she has seen is worse than his own suspicions, but fears she would not approve of such a gesture.

Instead he resolves to ask her when they are alone again. For now he focuses on the masked figure before him and the tale of places like this one throughout the mostly dead Shadow Lands. Resistance forces dedicated to cleansing the land or the blasphemy of the followers of R'hallor. They form a ring (to be completed by overtaking Asshai when the time is right). Each is the site of horrible atrocities and blood rites on the part of the red priests. The wrong must be righted before the land can be healed. This is why they must ask Jaime and Brienne to undergo the ritual soul viewing. They cannot risk having the mission comprised by having them roam the place freely until they know their true intents.

"We could just leave". Jaime offers looking at Brienne's cold expression.

"And die in the cursed wilderness? If we pass their test we should be able to go from one oasis to another instead of wandering on eternally. Besides I think someone from the Seven Kingdoms is going to need the information these people possess if what I saw back home is any indication."

Jaime nods; he is half disappointed that, as always, she will not give him an excuse to do the less honorable thing.

So they let themselves be led to the center of the village, where a round pool is surrounded by strange glyphs. Jaime sees himself kneeling before the pool, face upward so that the mystic could pour water from the pool over it. He understands. The water will cause Jaime to see what he most desires and the telepathic priest will witness this unveiling. Brienne, clearly similarly instructed, kneels. He follows suit, preparing himself for the sting as the water hit his eyes and yet it does not come. All he sees is Brienne.

He closes his eyes. Still Brienne on his eyelids, and Jaime feels everything reeling as he opens them to find his vision returned to normal. Brienne is avoiding his glance, colored strangely, as if she knows, though that was impossible. At least Jaime prays it was. The woman, yes she is a woman, would slay him rather than allow him to treat her as such. But all the thoughts he had not even known he was holding back and the dreams he had thought he could not remember, all are swirling in his mind, making denial impossible.

Their guard seems pleased by the results and the next thing Jaime knows they were being led to a dwelling not far from where they have been and ushered inside. Brienne takes one look around at the large marital style bed, and darts to the attached bathing chamber, shutting the door firmly behind her. Jaime has never seen her look so much like a frightened bird and wishes he knew what she had seen.

 

Brienne feels so much shame at the water's visions, visions of the man that has been her traveling partner for these last years and who sees her as a man and never a woman. Finding the tub full of scalding water, Brienne sets to scrubbing the shame from her body. With any luck when she emerges Jaime will have fallen asleep and she will not have to face him for a while longer, at which point hopefully the visions will have faded. That is why she takes extra care to clean herself and comb the tangles from her hair. Dressed in a black robe that the people of the village have left for her, she emerges to find that her strategy has failed.

Ushering Jaime to his own bath only buys her a little time, time to strategize. She will tell him that she saw Tarth in that moment, herself finding Ayra, Renly even. Better the first one. It will give an excuse to head home when they get to Asshai, hide from him the truth by her absence. She cannot stand the shame of any other option. Part of her balks though, can she really leave him? Would it not be better to conceal all traces and keep on?

She is still debating with herself when Jaime emerges, freshly shaven and glowing. She looks down at her hands, too large and browned. He seats himself beside her; she feels the movement without looking up.

"Why will you not meet my gaze, my lady?"

"Why are you calling me my lady, after all this time?"

He knows; there is no explanation other than that. She wishes he would be cruel. She is well used to that.

"In my haste to acknowledge you as equal and compatriot I have been lacking in chivalry."

His hand is warm against hers, fingers lacing together. She wishes he would not. It is a bitter cruelty to remind her of all she is not.

"I have never asked for it" she replies more coolly that she feels.

"How well I know that. Tonight is a time of truth, though. And I have to speak it even if you leave me alone in the desert as a result. I do not think of you as a brother, Brienne. I have fought against this but I have crossed over into the realm of revelations, and I must confess that you are more to me than I can say."

"Spare me your platitudes, Ser. I do not need your pity."

"That is true, but I need yours. I have always been a weak man and you make me wish I were otherwise."

"Then be otherwise and spare me your false courtesy. I valued Renly's regard only because it was true, though it was not what I might have wished."

It has been ages since she spoke Renly's name, ages since someone has been close enough to wound so deeply.

"I am sorry to have been false, but I did it out of respect for you. I never meant to impose the knowledge of my desire onto you. Forgive me."

"Desire?"

Brienne is completely lost; perhaps Jaime has gone mad in truth at last.

"Yes Brienne, I want so much more than I have a right to ask. Yet I will have to learn to do without. You have always made that much clear."

"Do without what?"

"You. You gave me a new life and all I want to do with it is to prove myself worthy of you. But it is a hopeless task."

"You would be better not to mock me. I have endured false suits before and if you think that I am going to make a fool of myself believing that you… that you."

The tears are loose already. It is too late for dignity. Brienne seriously considers dying in the wilderness as a viable choice to this shame of her emotions betraying her calling and her vows. She is halfway to the door, but Jaime is right behind her. She finds herself pressed up against the doorway and Jaime closing in. She is on fire as his lips meet hers, kissing her as if she is one of those maidens with dainty wrists and fainting dispositions, the kind to drive a knight to desperation. It is everything that the tales claim.

"Is that mockery?" Jaime breathes, pulling away slightly.

"If it is I will kill you."

And then he is kissing her once again, pulling her towards the bed with his good arm. She falls to the bed almost effortlessly and he is kissing her rough skin as if it is smooth as silk. Her robe has fallen open and he is touching places that no one save herself ever has. Her whole body is trembling and it is with great difficulty that she finally calls out unevenly for him to wait.

He looks confused and hurt.

"I'm not some common wrench to be had. If that is all you intend, I warn you to desist."

Comprehension dawning in his eyes, Jaime kisses her more softly, refastening her robe, "By the Seven, I've never… Forgive me for my haste. Let us find a priest now, or if you want to wait till we find somewhere where there's a proper sept…"

The Shadow Lands are a place of wonders, and not all of them are horrors. Asshai is the start of a whole new world for Brienne. She is there when the change happens and the skies clear, the mountains silence, and Arya comes forth as a priestess of this other order, bitter and strong. It is in Asshai where Brienne trades the blue of Tarth for Lannister red. Born anew, they depart from the ends of the earth back to the beginning, bearing a remedy to some of their land's evils, and a love polished under years of concealment and blossoming now so fervently as if to make up for lost time.


End file.
